Monday 17 November 2008 19.01 EST
First published on Monday 17 November 2008 19.01 EST

Gabriela Tobias, who has died of liver cancer aged 58, was one of a small group of dedicated GPs who started work in London's East End in the mid-1970s, when general practice was still seen as the poor relation of hospital care. Over the next 30 years, she worked with her medical partner, Dr Paul Julian, to turn the Well Street surgery, Hackney, into one of the best in London.

Gaby had wanted to become a doctor since she was a child. She was the first from her secondary school, on the outskirts of Wolverhampton, to study medicine, winning a place at University College London. Unusually, one of her first GP postings was to Boston, Massachusetts, where she shocked the establishment by making house calls in deprived parts of the city. But it was her junior postings at UCL and the Metropolitan hospital in Hackney that led to her pioneering work in setting up primary care in east London.

Gaby took up residence at Well Street shortly after marrying the oncologist Jeffrey Tobias in 1973. She soon proved tireless in serving on - and chairing - the many committees that led to the establishment of primary care trusts as the most important forum for strategic and financial NHS decisions. She played a significant role in providing joined-up care between community and hospital, and the East London Integrated Care approach, which she pioneered, is now firmly established. The idea of a victims' helpline - later taken up by the police - was essentially hers.

The provision of simultaneous translation for medical interviews was another of her innovations. She particularly enjoyed a consultation with a patient who was a professor of linguistics, whom she had kept waiting for an hour. "No apology needed!" he said. "I've just had the most fascinating time in your waiting room, earwigging on 19 different languages so far. Would you like to see somebody else first?"

Her grit and determination were particularly evident during the final two years of her life, after she had been diagnosed with cancer. She kept working as a senior partner at the surgery and as a health strategist for the East End, giving her final presentation to her fellow GPs - a review of out-of-hours emergency care - just two months before she died.

She is survived by her husband, now professor of cancer medicine at UCL, and three children, one of whom works as a practice manager.

Jon Snow writes: I first met Gaby Tobias nearly 40 years ago at the New Horizon youth centre. She had come to see what a young medical student could do to help provide services to London's teenage homeless. Enthusiastic and full of ideas, she persuaded other young doctors to get involved. One of her many legacies is a vibrant strand of medical and psychiatric care for London's young homeless where none existed before.

Gaby and her husband Jeff were a remarkable medical duo. When she was diagnosed with liver cancer, no household can have grasped so immediately what was to come. She was indeed a special doctor, mother and friend.

• Gabriela Jill Tobias, general practitioner, born April 9 1950; died August 21 2008